I forgot how much structure makes for good music until I listened to this band called Kalmah at the request of a friend seeking my opinion. I forgot what it was like when taste in music comes down purely to whether or not you "like" the riff. To answer your question, it made me realize what TRULY makes an album like Altars of Madness great.

I don' think there is much to be gained from this exercise. One can't really avoid hearing terrible music from time to time and for anyone with much musical knowledge, it is clear that it is all pretty much the same. There is more good music in the world than I will ever get the chance to listen to so I really can't understand why I would want to waste my time on garbage.

There is a decent spiel about the merits of pop music in the book The Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. The female protagonist argues that pure serious listening to the exclusion of all else precludes certain experiences. In the book its a toss up between Der Steppenvulf being alone in his room listening to classical or dancing with young women at a jazz club.

Pop music is largely poop and I think it's worthless to use it as a measuring stick, however I occasionally listen to light stuff like Okkervil River, David Bowie or Parov Stelar because unrelenting atonal frostbitten rotting grimness can be insalubrious, man.

Let me clarify, when I say "poop" I mean music thats still music, just poor music. Such as new Morbid Angel. Not "music" thats so shit that it can't even really be called music, such as what you would hear at the mall.

We just need to acknowledge it's existence to know in what world we are living but we don't need to actively listen to it. It's like we got to acknowledge that being it by a car is hurtful but we don't want to be hit by one.

Most music isn't so much completely horrible as it is mediocre. Actively listening to mediocre music isn't any better than listening to horrible music; the mediocre is just easier to ignore or leave on in the background without infringing too much on thought. It might just be my high background noise tolerance speaking, but many public places try to provide a soundtrack that I generally have little trouble disregarding.

Let me clarify, when I say "poop" I mean music thats still music, just poor music. Such as new Morbid Angel. Not "music" thats so shit that it can't even really be called music, such as what you would hear at the mall.

It would have to reach a certain standard of artistic merit to be taken seriously. But when that standard is reached, even an album that fails can still retain some useful ideas. I guess it's up to the listener to take in and reapply such ideas in a way that succeeds.